Tuesday, September 28, 2010

It's time we address the elephant in the room. Stephanie Meyer. She is the elephant in any room, at any time. Now I'm not saying she's particularly elephantine, but just that she looms over us all, whether we realize it or not. She is part of the fabric of existence. She's out there, right now, and there's nothing we can do about it.

I have a strange relationship with the Twilight books. I first became aware of them on August 4th, 2007. I know this because I wrote a blog about it here. Well, I wrote a blog about going to a bookstore to buy a copy of Trainspotting (in which their personal brand of heroin is actually heroin). I remember walking into that bookstore and seeing a huge display for the Twilight books, and thinking "what the crap is this?" I gathered that they were written by a local author of some sort and that the books were a publishing sensation. (research tells me that this happened only days before the release of the third book, hence the display).

I used to have co-workers, back when I had a job. Middle-aged ladies mostly. I remember overhearing them talk about Twilight and debating the casting choices for the movie. It was still barely on my radar. Then someone, probably Elin, had the bright idea to get a group of funsters together to go see the movie. So on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 I saw it and it was the most fun I've ever had in a movie theater (in the top three anyway, along with Wanted and Godzilla).

That movie is ridiculous. If you haven't seen it, you really need to, with a group of your finest smartasses. It was 2008, Lolcats were all the rage, so I whipped this up, and it got some polite chuckles from my friends and a few blog strangers who happened upon it.

It was up for about a week, and then it started to grow in popularity. One day my blog got over 300 hits! Then the next day it got 6,000. Then 13,000. Then over 125,000 in one day. It was all over Facebook and Twitter and comedy blogs and Twilight message boards. Currently it stands at about 800,000 unique views, and comments still come in and I still get letters from strangers telling me how funny it was. Wild! I went viral.

There's a point to all of this. The Twilight books take place in a real-life town called Forks, about a two hour drive from the Seattle area. Stephanie Meyer set the books there because a google search revealed it to be the rainiest city in the country. I like driving around, I like small towns, and I like doing ridiculous things, so a day trip to Forks seems like the best idea anyone has ever had (again, I think it was Elin's idea).

The drive up there is pretty.

Cars were lined up behind us to get a picture of the sign.

Bear in mind, none of the movies are even filmed here. But upon entering the town we discovered that the economy is almost completely Twilight based. There are four stores on one corner that all deal exclusively in Twilight merchandise, and they were all packed.

Of course everyone knows that the best of these stores is Dazzled by Twilight.

The inside has astroturf on the ground and is made up to look like the woods!

And Taylor Lautner just hangs out there all the time!

I bought this.

A comic-book biography of Stephanie Meyer. You can listen to my review of it here! Go to the 14:05 mark. "I'm still sore from all the brooding..." ha!

We walked around a bit. Here's Forks High School WHERE BELLA AND EDWARD TOTALLY WENT!

I don't know if Bella ever went bowling but this was a neat bowling alley and I would have loved to rolled a few lines there.

Outside of town is the Indian Reservation which sports a sign reading "No Vampires Beyond This Point" and a vacation rental property done up to look like Jacob's house.

First Beach at La Push. Great beach.

Such a striking image, that ocean knob there.

I love throwing rocks into bodies of water, and Nathaniel got in on the action too.

The beach is covered in Twilight graffito.

I marveled at all the Twilight messages written into the sand, but then discovered Elin was behind them all.

There was an enormous piece of driftwood on the beach.

So naturally Amy just up and climbed the thing.

She disappeared and I worried that she had perished but then she just came walking up like it was no big deal.

Here's all of us, just so you get a sense of the size of that thing.

Ah, the beach.

Went to Port Angeles in search of food and stumbled upon this restaurant, which claims to be the restaurant that Bella and Edward (two fictional characters) went on their first date.

Nothing suited us in Port Angeles so we skipped. I caught some neon on the way out.

Finally landed in Sequim (pronounced "skwim"), the driest city in Washington. Went to a Mexican place where this watches you eat...

and this watches you pee...

Here's the restaurant from the outside. I think that's a burrito tower?

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Why would I be nine miles outside of Twin Falls at midnight, standing at the edge of a truck stop with one foot on the pavement and one foot in the weeds, watching the cars pass by on the highway, gazing at the moon?

Because I was on my way to Seattle, obviously. In what has become an annual tradition, every summer I go on a road trip to Seattle.

Last year I went to Seattle to visit Nathaniel, who lived up there. He lives in Salt Lake now so me and he and a couple of nice young ladies went back to pick up his stuff or see his sister or steal t-shirts or something. Tip: any good road trip, especially a fourteen hour trip, should begin as late in the day as possible. We left at about 730pm, driving through the twilight hours, our truck like a stake through the heart of the night.

We brought a book along and took turns reading it out loud. Except for Nathaniel who was usually driving. Kept us busy for much of the drive. Though now we're three months past and we still haven't quite finished the book. That will soon be rectified I hope.

Nine miles out of Twin Falls and five outta Kimberly is a truck stop called Garden of Eden.

It's not just a name, it's a theme.

I think we had three more dead of night truck stop stops on the drive north. It's an interesting feeling, miles away from what you know at an unreasonable hour, roused from a bad sleep and feeling like your soul is on a three-second delay from the rest of your body. You inspect each aisle of the food section meticulously, as though this is your last meal and you can't miss the treasure that you've somehow overlooked. You can't even comprehend the array of oranges and yellows, reds and browns, cool-ranch flavors and 25% more peanuts. You couldn't wait to get out of the car and now you can't wait to get back in and the truck on the left has a Mexican Cowboy DH-ing his lady and the truck on the right is full of white supremacists.

Um, anyway truck stops.

I didn't sleep much and what sleep did come was poor, five seconds off and five seconds on. I had the Stars - The Five Ghosts on a loop in my ears for about three hours and now I can't even listen to it anymore because it is imprinted with the memories of this trip and I know no other memory will ever be able to eclipse that.

We finally came into town a few hours after the breaking of dawn and just in time for breakfast at the 5 Spot, whose french toast is one of the top five foods I've ever eaten. The restaurant has a rotating theme. Last time I was there it was Cannery Row, but this time the theme was Seattle, and they really nailed it.

I love that someone with artistic training and talent painted a portrait of Frasier.

I particularly enjoyed this sculpture of Ken Griffey Jr. inside of a shell of some sort. What is that, a geoduck shell?

Oh man I wish I hadn't just Googled "geoduck." Man. Ken Griffey Jr. One of the most tragic figures of our time. He could have saved us all, and instead he suffered injury after injury until his career ended one day when he didn't bother showing up for work.

We hung out around the water and the Pike Place Market and stuff. Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, home of the zombie.

The Lusty Lady is a beloved landmark, closed forever this summer because the internet took away all its business.

Is there anything the internet can't ruin?

I like Pike Place Market, even when it's humid. It's so colorful.

I got some avocado flavored bubble tea and it was yummy. Then later I had a cheese lunch. Happytimes.

We walked up to go to the Underground tour and on the way some lady pushed Nathaniel aside and then charged headlong into a busy street. Somehow she didn't get run over, but she did bash her head directly into a light pole while walking full speed.

Oh here's Chief Seattle.

A sculpture of him anyway. Loitering in this square we had a nice chat with a homeless sportsfan santa. He was talking about the Mariners and how great they're going to be once Matt Wieters comes up. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Matt Wieters plays for Baltimore. Then he went crazy talking about snacks. See me in person sometime, I'll tell you about it.

The Underground Tour takes you through the subterranean ruins of old Seattle. I was really interested in it at first but I'll say right off the bat that it's not quite worth it. Unless you like awkward puns delivered by college student-tour guides, who try to make everyone feel guilty for not laughing at their awkward puns.

Tourists are alright though. These two are better than any of us.

I'm not making fun of them, I really admire them.

Underground.Not underground?

We kept going from Underground to Not and I was getting so confused as to what was what. Elin had to keep explaining it too me. As a general rule of thumb, darkness: underground, trees: not. But there are exceptions!

This freaky monster of a pig truck reminded us that it was dinner time.

We went to uh, a Senegalese? restaurant. Wow, it was good. I'd recommend it if I knew the name or where it was.

In this picture it may look like Nathaniel is wincing and crying, but really this is an advanced Krav Maga technique.

Ferry to Bremerton, where we would be staying and hopefully getting some good sleep for the first time in thirty-six hours.

Nathaniel and Amy tried to have a private chat on the stern while I stood a few feet away and took pictures of them.

Park Avenue (love Green Acres. Could probably come up with five more just from NYC)Mulholland DriveThe Silk RoadOregon Trail (texted to my e-mail from a Vegas number? Who sent that? Either way, good one)Hiiiiiighway to the Dangah Zone

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Oh no get them away from me I don't like it I don't like it I don't like it!!!

I'm talking about all those bats up there. That's too many bats. I think the girl at the zoo told me there were 150 of them? Horrible creatures. I hate any kind of creature that likes to be bunched up like that. It's too weird.

So I took that picture during a fun day at the Zoo. See how fun?

Children of all ages love the Zoo. I've written about the Zoo many times here. You should find those entries and read them. Especially if you like apes. No apes today, but maybe an elephant.

And these gossipy old ladies.

You can see the giraffe in the middle, but there are actually two giraffes in this picture. Can you find the other one?

Give up? Okay I was lying there's only one giraffe.

I like this handsome Saharan cat. He seems so non-plussed by the parade of humanity before him.

The Month of May has been coveredalready, so I'll jump the end, Memorial Day. I discovered this.

It's a Monastery hidden near Huntsville. It seems like it should be easy enough to find but then suddenly you get bombarded with conflicting arrows.

The monastery is called the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity. It's nice. Very peaceful and green up there.

There's a shortage of monks. No one wants to be a monk anymore. Honestly, I can't say I blame them. I don't want to be a monk. Maybe if monk-life was all hanging out with Robin Hood and acting like a rapscallion that would be one thing, but it seems like it's just singing a dozen times a day and doing minor household repairs.

Anyway where is that church...

Here's the inside. We watched the monks do their chant. They filtered in one by one, slowly and reverently. There are seats for many a monk but I think I only counted seven of them. That made me sad.

The gift shop has some cool stuff and this guy runs it. He really likes to chat.

They sell a delicious honey there made by the monks. It's how they stay in business. It's some fine honey. Mighty fine. Also if you buy any 25-cent Saint cards he's going to ask you why you chose them. The correct answer is that they chose you. Just a little tip for ya.

Oh hey a baby!

My dear friends Lee and Lisa got one for themselves. I like Olive and she seems to like baseball and might like AC/DC (test results inconclusive). However here she is at two days old, seeming a little suspicious of me.

Her suspicion continues to this day, but I'll win her over. Babies just don't know the facts yet.